CHICO — The almost incomprehensible tragedy that occurred in Connecticut Friday is having reverberations in Chico.

The Chico Unified School District is struggling to mitigate the local mental trauma from the mass shooting that claimed more than two dozen lives, most of them children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Bob Feaster, assistant CUSD superintendent for human resources and "incident commander" for school emergencies in the district, said the district was transmitting information to parents advising them on how to support their children.

He urged parents to pay attention to how their children are acting.

Feaster said danger signs could include the youngsters becoming suddenly clingy or distant, staying unusually close to home, not eating or having nightmares, among other things.

Bernard Vigallon, retired principal at Fair View High School who continues to work in the district's emergency management planning effort, said parents should do what they can to keep young children away from the gory details.

Feaster said on-campus counselors will be prepared to help children at their schools next week if there are needs. He said having familiar faces providing the help will itself be soothing for the children.

A message posted on the district's website at www.chicousd.org expresses deep sympathy over the Connecticut tragedy and offers a link to information and tools for parents to work with their children.

The message, bearing the signature of district Superintendent Kelly Staley, also tries to reassure parents and children alike that the district is working to make the schools as safe as possible.

Both Feaster and Vigallon said reassuring the youngsters isn't an exercise in mouthing meaningless platitudes. The district has a continuing program of training and preparing for emergency events.

Feaster said there is a "district incident response team" — DIRT — that plans for and practices how they would react to school emergencies. In a serious incident that involves the police, the DIRT unit's role would be to work with and assist law enforcement, said Feaster.

The school district would provide police with any information they needed, including such things as campus maps, locations of the shutoffs for water, gas and electricity, and other information about campus layouts.

Vigallon said the district is planning exercises after the first of the year that will include the evacuation of students from a school and transporting them to a "reunification" location, where the parents will come to collect their children.

Feaster said Chico High School had an unscheduled emergency lockdown drill last year when a never-identified caller contacted the school and law enforcement to report there was a man with a gun on or near the campus.

CHS and a couple of other schools went on lockdown for hours before the event was found to be a hoax.

Feaster called that incident a "successful exercise," adding, "There are always things to learn from it, always things to improve."

"You hope it never happens," said Vigallon, but you have to do what you can to prepare for the unthinkable.